Monday, 31 May 2010

Remember that game when you were a kid where you'd draw a head on a bit of paper, and fold it over and have a friend draw the next bit, and fold it again and so on until you completed it and unfolded it to reveal a bizzare construction. Well there's an online version. My friend had only the feet left to go, so I thought I'd finish it off. This is what we ended up with.

Thursday, 27 May 2010

Thats right, the last weekly weight update. Thats because I did it! I reached my 3 stone target weight loss. I'm still not in my 'healthy' BMI (I have reservations about the use of BMI to dictate everything about your health), but this is the lowest weight I have been since I was 17, and I'm happy to try and maintain this weight for 6 months or so while I get everything else in my life sorted first. Not to mention I've dropped 2 dress sizes, and just in general feel so much healthier. Happy girl :D

So I just posted a little review of the first esc semi on the GU2 blog website, so thought I'd go ahead and copy it into a post for this rather neglected blog. One week of exams left :)

Tuesday saw the first semi final of the 2010 Eurovision song contest in Oslo. Widely agreed to be the weaker of the two semi's, there were still a lot of surprises. The 10 qualifiers, along with my thoughts, were (in no particular order);

Belgium: My favourites of this semi. A simple acoustic style song, with autobiographical lyrics. A refreshing song in a contest of gimmicks.

Iceland: Got the biggest cheer from the crowd. One of the few Schlager songs of this years contest.

Russia: The joke entry. Except most people don't realise. Which to the Russian's probably just makes it even funnier. I liked it, but it was a shock qualifier.

Bosnia & Herzegovia: Talking of shock qualifiers. Rock songs rarely do well at eurovision, so why this poor attempt got through is anyones guess.

Belarus: Only the second time Belarus have made it to the final. And well deserved (even if the gimmick was a love/hate divider). Another simple but classic song style.

Serbia: Quite an usual look this singer has gone for, and an usual style of song (to western ears at least), but insanely catching. Also quite a nice change for a country still relatively new to the contest.

Moldova: The opener of the contest, and apparently you cant go wrong with a dry-humping saxsophonist. Catchy, and I quite like it, but there probably were better one's that should have gone through in its place.

Albania: Another that doesnt deserve its place in the final. This is run of the mill, and rather dated, pop. With vocals and a melody that are equally mediocre. Dissapointing.

Greece: Eugh. Thats all.

Portugal: A pretty little ballad. Not very catchy, but pleasant enough at the time. Will probably get lost in the final though, unless its lucky enough to have a late placing.

And comiserations to those who didnt qualify: Estonia (very dissapointing, this was a great song), Malta (perhaps the gimmick was too much), FYR Macedonia (perhaps the semi naked girls were too much), Slovakia (perhaps the whole sherade was too much), Finland (shame, this was starting to grow on me), Poland (what a voice! Strangling your backing singers is definitely too much though), Latvia (again... eugh).

The second semi is live tonight from 8pm on BBC3. It promises to be an exciting and tense show.

Saturday, 22 May 2010

This coming week I have my final (final!) exams of my undergraduate degree. Big deal then. Sadly, after both eurovision semi-finals I have an exam the following morning. So this is gonna be a busy, mixed bag of a week... After all my exams are over though, I have some nice holidays lined up. Firstly, a trip to Slovenia to visit my dear Finnish friend who is spending the summer there, and then a second weekend trip to Butlins in Bognor Regis with my family. A kind of nostalgic trip, as this is where I spent many a happy summer holiday as a kid :)

I know I missed a week again. I had to work on my weigh-in night, and so had to go a fortnight. Which always spells disaster. I put on 2lb. So was 4lb from target and rather annoyed with myself. So last week I was determined to shift it again. And I did! I lost 2.5lb this week, meaning I'm now only 1.5lb from target. I also only have one week left at my Guildford group, and so would really love to reach target here rather than at a group back home since these are the people who have shared 'my journey'. So my determination has continued to this week. I will reach my 3stone target by wednesday!!!

Saturday, 1 May 2010

Ok, so its been quite a few weeks since I updated, but for the sake of consistency, I'm sticking with the title. It was easter and my birthday a few weeks back and I managed to put on a wacking 4.5lb in two weeks :/ But I was prepared for it and knew I'd go straight back on the wagon when I got back to Guildford. Which I did. In the last 3 weeks I've lost 6.5lb. Which takes me to a grand total of 2st 12lb! Just 2lb to go to reach my initial target of 3 stone. I set that target not thinking I'd actually get here (me and diets never have a particularly lasting relationship...). So now I'm here I'm so pleased with myself. But also aware that given how well I'm getting on with it, I can happily keep going. So I have set myself a new target of another stone to reach 4 stone total loss. Depending on how that goes, I might go for a bit more. But its early days yet. That just shows you how hiddeously overweight I was that I can loose up to 6 stone to reach a healthy BMI. Not that I put much value in BMI's but still... I'm determined not to give up just yet :)

Not much to say on this really. Except that it was really a lot of fun. Great food, great music, great company. We got given two complimentary casino chips when we entered, and I put one on 16 on the roulette and it won! So I had plenty to play blackjack with for the rest of the night :) I also won a lovely necklace in the raffle. It was all in aid of the charity, Leukaemia and Lymphoma research, and they managed to raise their £10,000 target. I also felt great because I was wearing a dress that I hadnt worn for 2 years, and as such had to have taken in (by quite a bit!) due to my super weight loss. I had a lot of lovely comments about it during the night, so made me feel really good. Here's a selection of some of the pictures I took on the night.